Posted on 07/02/2005 4:06:54 PM PDT by CHARLITE
My reaction to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement was almost as positive as my reaction in 1981 was negative when the Reagan administration announced that they were going to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court.
It wouldn't matter if all nine Justices of the Supreme Court were women, if these were the nine best people available. But to decide in advance that you were going to appoint a woman and then look only among women for a nominee was a dangerous gamble with a court that has become dangerous enough otherwise.
The recent outrageous Supreme Court decision making anyone's home prey to any politician who wants to confiscate it, using the magic words "public purpose," shows a court full of itself and blind to the havoc it is leaving in its wake.
Although Justice O'Connor was one of the four who opposed this latest outrage, over the years she contributed more than her share to the uncertainties and confusions in the law resulting from such nebulous notions as "undue burden" and other "nuanced" policy-making that splits the baby instead of drawing a line.
The political temptation may be great to appoint a Hispanic Justice or another woman or some other nominee selected on the basis of group identity rather than individual qualifications. At this crucial juncture in the history of the Supreme Court, that would be needlessly repeating the mistake that brought Sandra Day O'Connor to the High Court in the first place.
The political path of least resistance would be to nominate someone who can get confirmed by the Senate without a long political battle that would polarize the country. Another little-known "stealth" nominee like David Souter might fill the bill but the track record of Justice Souter's disgraceful disregard of the Constitution should be enough to warn against going down that road again.
Then there are the judicial candidates with a "conservative" label but who lack the toughness and integrity to stand up to all the pressures and temptations to go along with ideas that will win praise in the media and among the law school elites who favor liberal judicial activism.
Among the "conservatives" who succumbed and "grew" over time to the left is Justice Anthony Kennedy, once touted by some conservatives as "Bork without a beard" but who turned out to have neither the intellect nor the strength of Judge Robert Bork. One of his former colleagues on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals warned my wife and me, early on, that Kennedy was not strong.
The first time I saw Justice Kennedy on television addressing the American Bar Association, and obviously trying to suck up to them, I was reminded of what his fellow judge had said of him.
Another Anthony Kennedy might fool enough conservatives and appease enough liberals to get confirmed without a big political fight but our children and our children's children would end up paying the price in decisions as weak, vacillating -- and dangerous -- as those which Justice Kennedy has rendered.
President Bush has taken the long view on many issues that he could easily have avoided and saved himself political trouble, including Social Security and drilling for oil in Alaska. So there is hope that he will be prepared to spend some political capital in a tough Senate confirmation fight by nominating someone with both dedication to the Constitution and the strength of character to ignore the pressures and temptations to go along with fashionable "mainstream" judicial activism.
Whether Senate Republicans will have the fortitude and unity to make their majority mean something is another question. The McCain mutiny and sellout against the Republican attempt to stop Senate filibusters by Democrats is a sign that this may be the weak link in any attempt to restore the rule of law in our courts.
Another weak link are those people who think that the Senate should not "waste" so much time over judicial nominees but instead devote its efforts to other things that are considered to be the "real" issues of the day.
Recent Supreme Court decisions, of which the one destroying homeowners' property rights was only the most outrageous, should be enough to make clear that the real issue is preserving the Constitution.
The only quota should be; are they a strict constitutionalist contructionist or not? If not,... NEXT candidate poo-leeze!
Excellent post.
It's interesting that the liberal media has spent the last 25 years referring to Justice O'Connor as "the conservative Supreme Court Justice," while conservatives said that she was a liberal or a moderate at best.
Now that she's out, the liberals are reversing themselves and say that she should be replaced with a moderate because she was a moderate.
Don't expect to see much back bone in the Republicans, except the ones who are traitors like McCain and his ilk. Boy they hold on like super glue, as long as the Dems have them paraded on the network news every night they'd betray their own mothers.
Indeed...and you're being nice about it; I could think of a lot harsher.
Why in the world should Pres. Bush nominate a "moderate" when Bill Clinton gave us Ruth Bader Ginsberg, an ACLU lawyer, and David Breyer, both of whom have voted liberal on every issue tried before them? If Bill Clinton gave the court two liberals, then it's only fair that W gives his voters two conservatives, REAL conservatives.
The squishy "moderate conservatives" always become liberal as they age. There has never been a liberal appointed who has become more conservative over time.
That's was a great point you made about moderates only turning more liberal with age. Did you know that Ginsberg also sailed through the process with a vote of, I think 92 to NOTHING? I don't think there one vote against her. And coming from the ACLU is about as liberal as it gets. I wonder if we'll get the same treatment when president Bush appoints a conservative? HHhmmmm
True enough, but I think Sowell is 72 now.
Funny, but true. I had that opinion from the beginning. Nice to have my view now confirmed by the astute and distinguished Thomas Sowell........and also by you, peeweesmid!
Thanks for the comment!
Char :)
Exactly, Kitty.......and I like the way in which Sowell "dissects" Anthony Kennedy with regard to the sad "transformation" which happens with weak "moderate" conservatives.
I have my fingers crossed that George W. Bush isn't going to make another "Anthony Kennedy" mistake in a possible effort to appease the vocal leftists on the Hill.
Char :)
How about Sowell as the nominee?
Sowell may be a bit old for appointment, but he probably knows some very good, very conservative candidates
All court appointments are political and always have been. Just look at Washington's appointments--all supporters of the new Constitution.
Great idea!
Good article, as usual! However, O'Connor did go out on a high note (her eloquent dissent in Kobe).
That said, I bet Bush is going to "have to" nominate a woman for her seat. This is not the way it should be, but it's certainly something the Dems are going to jump on if he doesn't. Fortunately, there are a number of good women (Brown or Owen, anybody?) who are serious conservatives and would be fantastic on the SC.
That's right. President Bush is fortunate that he has at least 2 (and no doubt more) eminently qualified women to appoint. I'm not sure that that was the case (or the reasoning) when Reagan put O'Connor on the high court. I simply can not believe that this particular woman was "the best and the brightest" at that time. Not possible.
Thanks for your comment.....incidentally, the case was "Kelo," not "Kobe!"
Char :)
Someone with a brain would be good - a non-lawyer such as Charles Krauthammer. Someone who does not think European public opinion, or American public opinion, should be the basis for court decisions. Someone who recognizes that a baby in the womb is a person. Someone who would not order you to sell your property to someone else to build a shopping center or hotel, thereby increasing tax revenues. Someone who recognizes that terrorists are killers, not citizens. Someone who questions the whole idea of taking my money in order to give it to someone else.
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